The problem with paying for Charlotte's NFL stadium renovation is its owner (06-17-2024--Hour3)

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[00:00:29] All righty, so if you've listened to this program for a while, you know that I have over the years, I've had some criticisms of. Well, all of the opinion editors over at The Charlotte Observer and the McClatchy Papers in general. Oh, yes. And also at WRAL as well.

[00:00:52] And so I feel like, you know, I want to give an add a girl to Paige Mastin. She is the deputy opinion editor for The Charlotte Observer. And in the past, I have been critical of some of her analysis, if you could call it that.

[00:01:13] And so I feel like I should give credit where it is due. She had a piece called Charlotte isn't happy with Panther Stadium deal. The city should have seen it coming.

[00:01:22] And she writes, as it turns out, a whole lot of people in Charlotte are not too keen on the idea of giving 650 million dollars to David Tepper and the Carolina Panthers for Bank of America Stadium renovations. It's not exactly a surprise.

[00:01:36] Giving an embattled billionaire owner more than half a billion dollars when his team hasn't had a winning season in years was never going to excite a whole lot of people, even if it is a worthy and necessary investment.

[00:01:50] But the city seems to be handling it entirely the wrong way. As one would expect with a project of this magnitude, she writes, the city provided a forum for public input via an online survey. Of the 400 plus responses that the city received, about 300 of them opposed the deal.

[00:02:12] There were of course, this was according to WFA, the public radio station. There were, of course, people who just didn't think that the city should be spending its money on a football stadium.

[00:02:21] To be sure, there are a lot of people and you've heard that sentiment expressed in our own informal unscientific survey that we do right here on WBT. A lot of people don't think that this is a legitimate expense for local government to be undertaking.

[00:02:41] She says more interesting though was the fact that many respondents didn't seem to oppose the idea of subsidizing stadium renovations in general. They just don't want to subsidize David Tepper. And it's not even that it's, I don't want to subsidize a billionaire owner.

[00:03:02] I mean, that's part of it. There are people that don't know anything about who the owner is or anything about that, just that the owners are always rich because they own the team obviously. And so therefore, we shouldn't be subsidizing the billionaire owner.

[00:03:19] But part of it is also Mr. Tepper himself. And one of the things that you get disabused of really quickly in my line of work is any notion that you are above criticism and everything you do and say is correct.

[00:03:41] I made a comment in the last hour about Chuck Schumer grilling on a grill and he said that he had been in an apartment building his whole life. And so now finally he's in a house and so he's got access to a grill. He was visiting his daughter.

[00:03:54] She owns a house. And so he's finally grilling. And I said, that's probably the first time he's ever had a place that had a grill. And I immediately get a response from Jonathan on Twitter who says every apartment complex

[00:04:08] I've ever lived in had a grill in the common area whether it's by the pool or playground or pavilion. Yes. Virtually all of the, especially the ones built nowadays, they have grills in common areas.

[00:04:24] Now I will tell you, I have lived in many, many apartments in the course of my life as well and not all of them have had grills. A lot of them do. Some of them don't.

[00:04:33] I don't know what the grill codes are in New York where he lives or in DC or wherever. He says he lives in an apartment so he's probably living in Washington, DC. I don't know. Or New York City or something.

[00:04:48] I don't know what those codes are but that's what I mean. You can't do this job saying stuff for three hours a day and also tweeting a lot and not have people say, Pete, you got that wrong. Pete, you're an idiot. Pete, you're Islamophobic.

[00:05:05] You know, the normal stuff, right? And so I understand I've said the same thing about Donald Trump. I say it about all, especially at the higher levels, like once you start rising through

[00:05:19] the ranks in politics, you are surrounded less and less by people who are going to tell you you're wrong. You're an idiot. You said something stupid. And those who do say that sort of thing, it's easy to just kind of dismiss them as, you

[00:05:37] know, oh, they're just partisans. In politics, you could just say, oh, they're just partisans. They just hate me because I'm the other party or whatever. But in the world of finance and when you are, you know, and you're not in politics and you're

[00:05:52] not really in the public eye as David Tepper, you know, hasn't been for I would say probably most of his life. I never heard of the guy beforehand. Now, I don't follow the financial trades and all of that stuff.

[00:06:03] I'm sure people in that industry knew him very well. But the idea that you could kind of get insulated from a lot of the criticism that he is now hearing because he's in a higher profile, more widely known arena, you know.

[00:06:22] I'm not sure that I'm not sure he's used to it. And so, you know, I suspect over time he'll develop a thicker skin and maybe make better decisions from a PR standpoint, whereas, you know, but when you're worth 20 billion, that's

[00:06:37] a lot of bleep you money to throw around, you know. And that's what that is. That is, you don't have to care what anybody else thinks or says because you got so much money you can do whatever you want.

[00:06:48] And now you do have to kind of care a little bit about what people want, because here's the thing, you know, if the team starts winning and the team gets good, then yeah, you're going to be people are going to like you a little bit more.

[00:07:04] But if the team doesn't get much better, and historically speaking, if that's any indication of future performance, the team is not going to get really great. And you need people to not hate you when you come asking for the kind of money that you're asking for.

[00:07:25] And yes, I know that you're like, oh, I could move the team. That's fine. That doesn't engender any kind of loyalty or kindness towards you either, because that's a threat. People don't like being threatened, right? Yes, there's always a threat.

[00:07:38] There's always the possibility that a team will move because it's his team, right? He bought it. I get that. I totally understand that. I would be sad if they left. I would prefer that they stay. They've been building a brand here for, what, 30 years now? Over 30 years?

[00:07:56] And I would very much like to see that continue here. But that's the thing about having Bleep You money is that he can tell all of us Bleep You. I recognize that. I recognized that from the very beginning. He's no Jerry Richardson.

[00:08:11] Jerry Richardson had a love of the Carolinas because he was from here. David Tepper is not. So I recognized as soon as he was the owner, I learned a little bit about him. It's like, okay, he has no allegiance to Charlotte, to the Carolinas.

[00:08:25] No matter what he says, there isn't any. He doesn't have to. And he's got so much money that he can go anywhere he wants to. He'll pay whatever penalties he asked to and he can do whatever he wants to do.

[00:08:35] I mean, that's... and I don't begrudge him for it. However, when asking for $650 billion in tourism revenue to be diverted away from anything else and to be funding the renovations of the stadium, it helps if you're a nicer guy.

[00:08:56] Now I understand also they do a lot of charity work in the Charlotte area. I give credit where it is due for that also. But you also throw a drink at a fan at a ballgame and you know, you got a couple of these business

[00:09:12] dealings that went completely sideways with Charlotte and Rock Hill. I'm not getting into the details of all that. Just that people got stiffed, workers got stiffed on the job, right? Contractors got stiffed and they eventually got made whole.

[00:09:27] But you can't... like, it takes a lot to build back that kind of trust after you've just crapped on people, you know? When you stop at a restaurant and you take some guy's hat off his head and you demand

[00:09:40] to know who wrote the sign out front that's disparaging you because they're Big Panther fans and they want the best for the team and they don't think you're making decisions that are best for the team, and you take it personally that you're going to pull over

[00:09:52] and demand to talk to the manager. Like, that's the stuff from a PR and an optics standpoint, that stuff matters. It matters to us little people, okay? I know we don't have the bleep you money. We're just paying you it.

[00:10:08] If you have an opinion about the Panther Stadium, you can call in and you can register your opinion. You can also go down to the Charlotte City Council meeting at 3 o'clock in a mere 40 minutes from now, 45 minutes on the dot actually.

[00:10:24] But I suspect it's already a done deal. It's going to happen. I would prefer that the money first in would be teppers or equal funding pacing. I would prefer a structure that put him on the hook first for a bunch of money, even

[00:10:48] though I know that he's got the bleep you money, he can walk anytime he wants. Let's go to the phones and get Dean. Hello, Dean. Welcome to the show. Hi, Pete. Hey, how are you? Pretty good. How about you? I am doing well.

[00:11:03] You sound as good as ever, to be honest. Well, thank you. Anyways, I'm listening to all the proponents because of the of the professional sports and how we need that to be the economic impact and the future of the city and everything.

[00:11:24] And I mean, to me, I'm from up north. And if you strip away the thrill of having a team, I don't see what professional sports or the stadium has really done much for Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Buffalo or Detroit or St. Louis.

[00:11:42] I mean, if you're looking from an economic standpoint, I don't see where a professional team actually has much input into sustaining an area. So no, that's a fair point. And thing to keep in mind about the economic impact studies is that like 90 percent of

[00:11:59] economists agree that they don't have economic impacts that are more that are beyond like marginal. It's what you're what you're buying is something else. You know, there's and there is value in that something else in the prestige, in the quote world class city.

[00:12:15] People see the city and they know where it is. They know about it. There's something to talk about with them. Like people bond over it. But those are all intangibles. The economic impact that that is purported, you know, with the stadiums is grossly overblown.

[00:12:31] And the the money that is spent on the tickets would otherwise go to other types of activities, whether it's college or high school football or basketball or other, you know, leagues, minor league baseball, whatever, the arts. People would do other things with it.

[00:12:46] Now, I would just disagree with the one thing that you said about Buffalo, that without the bills up there, I don't really know. There isn't another reason to live there. That's the only thing Buffalo is the only place that as far as I can tell, there's no

[00:12:59] other reason for it to exist except is to have that football team. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's really like not only right. But yeah, they're all they all live here in Cleveland. Yeah. Well, Cleveland, too. They well, but they have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[00:13:12] And as I understand it, that city rocks. So, Dean, I appreciate the call. It's a fair question. And these are the it's an it's an easier question to ask when the team stinks for as long as it has. But maybe this year will be different.

[00:13:26] Talking Tepper, talking about the Bank of America renovations, talking about the Charlotte City Council going to probably approve it. I would like to see more money from Tepper in up front. Also, Scott Fowler at the Charlotte Observer, I thought had a really good idea to a longer

[00:13:43] term, no moving clause. He says 30 years rather than the 15, because that was originally billed as 20. But they can leave at 15 and then pay whatever's left off of the total bill. And that's going to that's going to be chump change for for Tepper.

[00:14:02] So they should tether the team to Charlotte for a longer period of time. I like that idea, too. Let's go back to the phones here. And this is Ben. Welcome to the program. Hello, Ben. Hey, how are you doing? Hey, I'm good. What's going on?

[00:14:18] I'm going to give some quick math on this thing. 650 million for 20 years. That comes out to eighty nine thousand dollars a day. That's like the price of I think that's the price of one of the Taylor Swift concert tickets at this point.

[00:14:33] Well, but what are we getting for eighty nine thousand dollars a day? So I will. So I will take the position that the boosters will take, which is first off, most of them all of the money is a dedicated revenue stream that's coming from, quote, tourism dollars.

[00:14:54] Most of that is paid for by out of town people. They are using hotel rooms, renting hotels. They are also dining out and stuff. But we also thought, yeah, that's not true because it's coming from the restaurant tax. I was in the restaurant. No, no.

[00:15:10] Well, that's I was just getting ready to say it also is a prepared food and beverage tax. So it's not strictly tourist funded. There is local dollars being used on the prepared food and beverage side, and they have not provided a breakdown for how much that is.

[00:15:26] So we don't know how much is actually coming out of locals versus visitors. Does that make sense? Well, what I know is as a small businessman in Mecklenburg County, I can't get any of this kind of money for a business. All right.

[00:15:43] The only people that get it are the guys that already have a lot of money. They have leverage and they own a product that there's only one of them in town. And there's a monopoly on where those are located. Right.

[00:15:56] And so all of the other team owners are not going to jam up Tepper because they don't want to be jammed up themselves. That's correct. But this comes out to almost two and a half million dollars a game.

[00:16:09] This money comes out to that's that's how much is being spent. And the numbers simply don't work. Well, so when you say per game, is that including the soccer games? No, that's not including the soccer games. That includes the football games. Right.

[00:16:24] So again, the boosters would argue that you got the soccer games, you got the football games, but you also have the concerts. And to his credit, they have brought more events to the stadium. They have the different college bowls and stuff like that. They are doing more things.

[00:16:43] And we didn't have any music in Charlotte either until David Tepper came to town. That's what I've been told. So I just I just wish he would sell the team to the PSL holders that that are there that really are dedicated to the area.

[00:16:58] And we won't have to go through this every time. You know, these guys want more money. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a that's sort of the Green Bay Packers model. And there's a reason, I think, why there's only one team that does it.

[00:17:10] You know, it's the league is not a fan of that kind of an arrangement. So but there are there are you are seeing now more of what are they like equity partners coming on board into different ownership groups.

[00:17:24] So there's more of that occurring, I think, now in the NFL than there used to be. But yeah, just I don't think the owners are big fans of that because they are in a very exclusive. Yeah. They're in an exclusive club. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:36] Anyway, eighty nine thousand dollars a day. It's a lot of money. Yes. And we're not getting a return on it. Yeah. Now I hear you, Ben. I appreciate the call, man. Thanks. All right. Let's go over to Troop. Hello, Troop. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Thanks, Pete.

[00:17:52] What about this? I had to hear him say this. What about getting Homer Stokes, I mean David Pepper, to ask the players, hey, anybody want to pitch in, help pick up the house? And then that way, taxpayers won't have to pay so much.

[00:18:11] Do you think that's going to happen? No, not like snowballing hail. Probably not. Yeah. I'm going to give you all this money, but now I'm going to take some of it away, fix up the house. Yeah. No, it's a it's a fair it's a fair ask.

[00:18:27] It's going to get a no. But yeah, let me see your chip says what I don't hear is where Temper would take the team if he did move. The Duluth Panthers. It's got a ring to it. Yeah. The Salt Lake Panthers. Salt Lake salts.

[00:18:49] Anyway, St. Louis is currently in decline. Apparently San Diego didn't take the bait. I don't know how. Did San Diego lose their team? I guess they did. The Chargers, I can't even keep them all straight anymore. I don't know about San Antonio.

[00:19:04] Is it possible the NFL needs Charlotte more than Charlotte needs the NFL? That's it. I mean, that is a good question, too. How do you quantify that? Right. Look, I was a reporter here 20 years ago, 24 years ago when Charlotte played chicken

[00:19:24] with George Shin and then his accomplice, Ray Wooldridge, with the Charlotte Hornets and the NBA. And they packed that team up and moved. They brought it back and like they've been having just wild success ever since their return. That was a lengthy, lengthy ordeal.

[00:19:53] Lot of hard feelings, a lot of hurt feelings. And the worst of it was that they went ahead and built the arena anyway in order to lure the NBA back to town. That would indicate that the NBA wants to be here.

[00:20:07] And the NBA did say that, that they wanted to be here because this is a very good market TV wise, population center wise. This is a good market. Where would they go? I don't know.

[00:20:20] But if you've got all sorts of money and you're the kind of guy that buys your old boss's house to tear it down and build your house right on top of his property, that's bleep you money.

[00:20:36] So I would just advise against playing chicken with somebody who can wreck the car and buy a million more of them. Right? Okay. So if you're listening to this podcast, you are obviously paying attention to the world around us. You also have really great taste I might add.

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[00:21:08] If you're an experienced prepper, they can help you too. Being prepared is just smart. We've already established that you're smart. I mean, you listened to this podcast after all. So let's put those smarts into action. Go to carolinareadiness.com. That's carolinareadiness.com or call them at 828-226-7239.

[00:21:29] Carolina Readiness Supply has 2000 square feet of supplies as well as educational materials that you're going to need for any kind of emergency. Veteran owned Carolina Readiness Supply. Will you be ready when the lights go out? Charlotte City Council, probably going to vote yes on the Panther proposal.

[00:21:46] The Charlotte City Council vote is June 24th. Scott Fowler says, I would try one more time to negotiate at least three to five more guaranteed years in Charlotte from the Panthers and Charlotte FC, even if it costs a few more million dollars.

[00:22:01] Those two teams under the current proposal could get out of this deal after 2039 and move elsewhere. Fifteen years is too short of an invisible string tying the teams in the city together, even though the deal is often presented as a 20 year non relocation that would take it through 2044.

[00:22:18] In reality, it could be bought out after 15 years for a figure that I have heard would come to several hundred million dollars. It's not insubstantial, but it's easily affordable for Tepper, who's worth roughly 20 billion. All right, back to the phones we go and here is Reed.

[00:22:35] Welcome to the show. Hey, Reed. Oh, hey, Pete. Thanks for a great show. Thanks, sir. I hadn't even thought about that. There's a buyout clause in there. The city council didn't let on to that. So that's that's very interesting.

[00:22:48] And that kind of makes it a wash if we put in three hundred fifty million, we get it back later. If the big concern is losing the team, I think there's a city nobody's been thinking about or a place.

[00:23:00] And we got a hint, Pete, during the NFL draft. If you remember, probably for about the third or fourth draft pick, they went straight to the great city of. Are you ready for it? Berlin, Germany. Hmm. Yeah. So that's we got that going for us.

[00:23:19] They would pick them up and move them over into Europe. Well, you know, I mean, there's probably a lot of money over there and they got great fan base. They probably have a better fan base than we do. So that's just something we might want to think about.

[00:23:34] I would probably try to get a clause in there. I mean, this is all futile anyway. The city council is already just letting us do this at three o'clock in the afternoon when no one can go to a meeting and kind of.

[00:23:44] Well, they weren't even going to do it at all. They were just going to take their vote at their next meeting. So they kind of jam this thing in before the zoning meeting. Yeah. And who cares about the potholes and the bumps in the road?

[00:23:58] And some of the things that we probably need, maybe CMS could use three hundred fifty. But you know, city council, they enjoy going to the suites. And the county commissioner, Dina Delorio and all these great people that, you know, they're the smart ones. We're just the peasants.

[00:24:15] Pete, thanks. Yeah, keep going. All right, Reed, appreciate the call. Let me go over to it's Dior Rio, just for the record. Barbara, welcome to the show. Hey, Barbara. Hey. Hey. And 1989, I bought a small business in Mendhill, North Carolina, called Happy's Grill. Yeah.

[00:24:40] And right after I bought that, they put on that one extra cent tax for prepared food and we were promised that it would be lifted. I think it was after five years, which stuff is still in effect. And I think they've even raised it since then.

[00:25:03] And that was to move the stadium that we had on Tavola Road to build the one that is uptown for the basketball team. And it was put before the voters and we voted it down and they did it anyway. So those are different things.

[00:25:24] So the original prepared food and beverage tax that went in place, I don't know the original date of it. If you're saying it's 1989, I believe you. But the arena vote that came later in the 2000s. About Happy's Grill and our established Happy's Grill in Mendhill in 1989.

[00:25:45] I don't remember whether it was 1990 or 1991, but whatever year it was, we were promised that it was going to come down. No, it's been in place ever since. Temporary taxes never are temporary.

[00:26:00] They never unless you put into the original tax law that it sunsets and that's why they don't do it. So this way the tax can always stay on the books. I'm just saying that the deal to move the Coliseum uptown, that occurred in the early 2000s.

[00:26:15] That was a separate deal, but it was the same pot of money they're using. That's exactly right. They're using tourism tax dollars. They can call it tourism. They were going to slap for the arena deal.

[00:26:28] They were going to slap the car rental industry with an additional tax for car rentals and that drew a lot of backlash too. Barbara, I appreciate the call. The backlash to the car rental tax was that people who are renting cars are not always from out of state.

[00:26:44] In fact, you have a lot of people that rent cars because their car got totaled or got in an accident. They got it in the shop and so they got to rent a car and they're just they're locals. So it's not the tourism revenue fund.

[00:26:59] It is not a clean fund of only hitting out of staters, out of towners. The hotel motel tax is a little bit cleaner because generally speaking, you know, you're not renting a hotel room in town.

[00:27:13] I know some people do this, but the vast majority of people that are renting hotels are renting them when they're going someplace else. Right? And in fact, some places like, I don't know if this is the case in Charlotte, but I know

[00:27:27] in Asheville, if you had a local address, you could not rent a hotel in Asheville. You had to be from out of town. So I don't know if Charlotte has the same sort of regulation on that.

[00:27:39] But yeah, then they talked about the car rental tax and prepared food and beverage tax and there was the arena deal that had that one that got voted down. That would have been gosh, oh four. I want to say maybe, maybe oh three. No, no, I'm sorry.

[00:27:53] It was 2001, right? Because we voted it down and then 9-11 hit. And I remember people thinking, wow, you know, imagine if we had taken out all of this debt right before the economy, you know, went in the tank after 9-11.

[00:28:10] So that arena deal also had a new stadium for the Knights built uptown, which, you know, that never happened. Also a bunch of museums to be rebuilt and new ones built all in uptown. Thank God that never happened. Yeah.

[00:28:33] So I suspect this is heading the same way, guys. I'm not saying I like the fact that the sports teams have this kind of leverage over the cities. But as far as bad deals go, this isn't the worst of the bad deals, right? There are way worse deals.

[00:28:52] I mean, look at what Charlotte did for the Hornets. Okay. All right. That's enough. That's enough. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise

[00:29:05] on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to theptcalendarshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.